My kids and I found a big spider...?

Question

and my son wants to know whether it's a boy or a girl. Is there any way for me to tell?

Answer 1

Depends on the species. In a lot of species, the males are MUCH smaller than the females. In some cases a female will be pretty big while a male will be hard to even see.

Another good way to tell is if you see egg sacs around its web if there are egg sacs, it's probably female, but a lack of egg sacs doesn't necessarily make it male.

Of course, if you don't know the species and can't find the web, you're probably SOL.

Answer 2

An obvious clue is that females will have large, heavy abdomens (egg production, you know), while males (even if they're near the same size and not much, much smaller) will have smaller, thinner abdomens. Of course you would want to have seen enough of both genders that you could say which were larger and fatter, but there's no reason that you couldn't just tell your son that it's a girl (which it may very well be), and justify it by the abdomen reason. Of course, if you can see the 'boxing glove' pedipalps on the 'face' you'd know for sure it's a male, but (1) only adult males show this, and (2) unless you've seen it before, it's easy to mistake the normal swelling on the final segment for a 'boxing glove'.

Answer 3

In SO many species of spiders, the female is MUCH bigger than the male, and i would listen to Jay W about the little pakets on the males legs, ive never actually heard of those but he really seems to know what he's talking about.

~Drak

Answer 4

As Jay W said, most male spiders have appendages modified to carry sperm packets. In many species, this is actually fairly easy to see. The males look like they have little boxing gloves on, when you look at their pedipalps (the little 'arms' at the front of their body).

Answer 5

Other than size (females tend to be larger), males have adapted two of their limbs to hold sperm packets that transfer them to the females' bodies. However, I doubt anyone except a rabid entomologist could recognize them, and spiders in general display little to none sexual dimorphism (different characteristics between males and females) otherwise.

Answer 6

Sounds like you have a lot of answers but If you have not found the answer yet I would try an exotic pet store in your area. They usually know how to handle pet or exotic animals and could probable tell you.

Answer 7

It usually depends on the species, but females are bigger that males. If it's a big spider, im guessing--- FEMALE

Answer 8

look between its legs??